Hailed Vs Hated, A Review

I've been writing a series of articles on Blood of Kittens called On Blogging.  The series is in its infancy, but already two articles are published (Part II went up last night), two more are in the works, and I've barely scratched the surface of the content I'm planning.

One of the things I'm working on is finding a balance in the Questionnaires I send out to the respective blog owners I'm interviewing - though perhaps this is a fine time to mention that not every chapter will include an interview.  Point is, I have much more material than I could possibly squeeze in to an article, and it's too good to let it drift away on the blue digital sea.

So I'm going to publish some of it here!  And if that drives even a tiny bit of extra traffic to this site, great!

Your most innovative idea is Hailed Vs Hated.  Can you tell the audience what that’s all about?

Thank you kindly. It’d be a pleasure, all the more so because HvH genuinely tells the story of what I’ve come to enjoy and admire about this blogging malarkey. Please indulge me a moment.

I’d noted Dark Templar’s blog (http://the-dark-templar.blogspot.com/) (...let's see, must add to blogroll...) because of his affection for Iron Warriors, and also noted with interest that he’d jumped over to Blood Angels well in anticipation of their release. At about the same moment, I’d been fishing around for some inspiration for my Chaos army, who I call the Arrugginiti (which means something like “the rusted ones”). Originally, I’d imagined the Arrugginiti as oxidized Iron Warriors, but that idea was getting a bit stale before I’d even made any momentum with it (That line goes a long way to explaining his success!). So, as mentioned, I was fishing around for some ideas that would round out their fluff and help pull me through the more tedious moments of collecting and painting an army.

Fluff, for me, works wonders when it comes time to sit down for long hours at the painting table. If I can add a bit of character or narrative to a squad or model, I can get twice as much done than if I’m simply cross-eyed and bored. Moreover, it lends the army an intrinsic value it wouldn’t have otherwise.

So. Blood Angels. Everyone was getting all hot and bothered about them on the interwebs, and I was up and running with the blog. And so I thought, well, there it is. The Arrugginiti hate the Blood Angels. That was fine and gave me a good starting point, but I thought the blog opened another door here. Why not contact a Blood Angels enthusiast/blogger and see if he’d be up for a bit of banter about it all during and after the Codex release.

I wrote Dark Templar (who happens to live 3,500 miles away) completely out of the blue with some sad rambling note about how I’d seen his blog and about how I thought I might borrow a recipe or two and about the idea I had for some banter and how it’s okay if he thought it strange and apologized that he didn’t now me from anyone at all, etc. (What I love about this is I had no idea.  I thought the two guys knew each other, but instead it was an idea that grew.  See what happens when you take chances?) Well, it must have really struck a chord with him because, immediately, he was game. In fact, he deserves so much of the credit from that point that I barely know where to begin. He came up with the title Hailed vs. Hated on the spot (Personally, I would have stolen credit for that one...). He made the banner we use when making an HvH post (turns out he’s a wiz with graphics). He first suggested the transatlantic battle report that we tested out, and he made the maps to track the action therein. I’ve made up a few stories, painted my army, and taken the odd photo or two. It’s as if I started a sentence and he finished it for the both of us. All of it.

It’s been tremendous fun. I’ve found inspiration for my army, and have nearly completed their muster. Almost all the models, including several objective markers, have some reference to Templar’s Blood Angels (either large or more subtle). But all that’s pretty mundane when placed next to Hailed vs. Hated itself. I don’t want to sound immodest, but I think we’ve really brought something quite novel and genuine to the blogosphere – particularly so with the battle report (I agree, darn it all!).

And that’s it. All I did was have an idea and reach out to a complete stranger who I only “knew” from similar blogs. That’s the beauty of this little blogging neighborhood (if I can call it that). The ideas are all out there floating around all the time. The talent is out there too, just the same. We simply had to connect the dots.

So there you have it!  BSMoove wrote that he's seen a significant uptick in the traffic to his blog, which he attributes to the article on Blood of Kittens.  I'm glad for him and I wish him continued success.